Jace Hall hosts his own show at Crackle.com, and as a former chief executive at Monolith Studios (No One Lives Forever, F.E.A.R) it's fair to say that he should at least know what he's doing in the games space.

In any event, Hall managed to talk the 3D Realms folks into talking about the game, which has been in development for what, a dozen years now? This would also seem to imply that the ShackNews demonstration was also legitimate.And yes, there's about 20 seconds or so of actual gameplay footage, which looks pretty polished. (And yes, it should be by now.) If you want to simply skip right ahead, it's about 4:20 in. Believe it or not, there seems to be some Duke Nukem Forever gameplay video available on the Web.

[Here's the NEW video]


» Read full story

The German government yesterday passed a controversial anti-terror law that would grant police the power to monitor private residences, telephones and computers.

Instead of tapping phones, they would be able to use video surveillance and even spy software to collect evidence. Physically tampering with suspects' computers would still not be allowed, but police could send anonymous e-mails containing trojans and hope the suspects infect their own computers.

Government cyberspying, the legislators point out, would only be conducted in a handful of exceptional cases.

The bill, called a building block for Germany's security architecture by interior minister Wolfgang Sch

» Read full story

Teenagers are increasingly snapping naked pictures of themselves on their cell phones, officials say, with the photos often falling into the wrong hands.

Sometimes the photos end up in everyone's hands, via the Internet.

"It used to be that kids would make mistakes, and it was local and singular and everyone knew it was part of growing up," said Catherine Davis, who had a frank talk with her two sons after several students' nude self-portraits recently spread through the wealthy New York City-area suburb of Westport, Connecticut. "Now a stupid adolescent mistake can take on major implications and go on their record for the rest of their lives."

Such images are complicating the work of investigators whose job is to find exploited children. Authorities trying to identify youngsters in naked photos are increasingly discovering that the teens themselves took the shots, said John Shehan, a director at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

School administrators in Santa Fe, Texas, confiscated dozens of cell phones from students in May after nude photos of two junior high girls began circulating. The girls had sent the photos to their boyfriends, who forwarded them to others, officials said.

In La Crosse, Wisconsin, a 17-year-old boy recently was charged with child pornography, sexual exploitation of a child and defamation for allegedly posting nude photos of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend on his MySpace page. The girl had taken the pictures with her cell phone at her mother's home and e-mailed them to the boyfriend, authorities said.

"They were pretty graphic," said sheriff's Sgt. Mark Yehle. "I think they just do it to impress their boyfriends. When he breaks up, he `vents,' in his words, by posting them. He apparently didn't think there was anything wrong with it. He didn't know it was illegal."

Psychologists said the phenomenon reflects typical teenage hormones and lack of judgment, with technology multiplying the potential for mischief. It also may reflect a teenage penchant for exhibitionism, as demonstrated on MySpace and countless other Web sites and blogs.

Brianna Moran, 15, who attends the same school as the girl in the La Crosse case, said she is not surprised by such behavior. "They probably think they're hot or something. If you look at people's MySpace, all the pictures are slutty," she said.

In suburban Syracuse, New York, several teenage girls sent naked pictures on their phones to their boyfriends, only to learn that another boy had collected them from the Web and was trying to sell a DVD of them.

Some boys are photographing themselves, too. In Utah, a 16-year-old boy was charged with a felony for sending nude photos of himself over a cell phone to several girls. Four middle school students - two boys and two girls - in Daphne, Alabama, took photos of themselves on their cell phones and traded the images back and forth, authorities said.

Connecticut police Sgt. Jim Smith, who investigates cybercrime and online child pornography, conducts seminars in which he warns parents about the use of cell phones to send nude pictures.

"It's often so spur of the moment that they're not thinking about where those images might end up," Smith said. "They might think it's just fun and games at the time they do it, but these images can really spread like wildfire."
» Read full story

Advanced Micro Devices Inc is rolling out a much-awaited line-up of chips for laptops, as Intel Corp's main rival seeks to regain a competitive footing against the world's biggest chip maker.

AMD, which in April posted its sixth consecutive quarterly loss amid missteps and market-share losses to Intel, said the launch of the processors and related parts, code-named Puma, is its largest-ever launch for notebook personal computers.

AMD counts more than 100 different notebook PCs designed to use versions of the Puma platform. "This is double the design wins over any previous mobile launches," Leslie Sobon, director of product marketing at AMD, said in a phone interview.

PC makers using Puma chips include Acer Inc, Asus, Dell Inc, Fujitsu Siemens Computers BV and Hewlett-Packard Co, she said. Prices for the mobile PCs will be mid-range for laptops, from about $700 up to $2,000. Most will be available in time for the back-to-school shopping season, and some will be available this week.

Growth in desktop PCs has been slowing for years, and the mobile segment is where the fastest growth is in the PC industry. Market research firm IDC predicts that consumers will buy more mobile PCs than desktop PCs by the end of this year.

"It is a good platform and I think the design wins are a testament to that fact," IDC analyst Bob O'Donnell said. "Everybody wants a serious competitor to Intel, you can't ignore that. But people aren't going to randomly take an alternative if it's not any good."

Sunnyvale, California-based AMD is offering three versions of the Puma platform -- a collection of the microprocessor, wireless chips to connect to WiFi, and related chips. Puma uses AMD's Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core processor as its brain.

At the cheaper end, AMD's new platform will use graphics technology integrated in the chipset, allowing video-gaming and also good enough to play back digital media seamlessly. 

» Read full story

At day three of the Computex exhibition we land at the luxurious Hyatt Hotel, where suites have been changed into booths. Weird but true. We'll start off the review where we left off yesterday though, after that the Hyatt, some cool product photo's and still pending more articles from the Computex in Taiwan.

Read article:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/computex-2008-day-3--the-man-with-hammer/

Please visit our computex landing page, right here.

» Read full story

PAGING Dr Google! The search giant has entered the medical arena with Google Health, a website which helps users find doctors and medical information. What's more, if any of your healthcare providers have signed up to the service, Google Health allows you to import your medical records from them and share the data with other doctors.

But Bob Gellman, a privacy consultant in Washington DC, warns that if you use Gmail and Google's search engine, and now entrust Google with your medical data, the company may have "more information about you than any other source". Google Health, which is so far open to US residents only, and rivals such as Microsoft's HealthVault are not covered by US privacy regulations concerning health records, although they do promise to protect personal data.

» Read full story

Want to pause and record live TV? Or perhaps play movies in full HD ? Store content onto the hard disk or use as a standalone media jukebox?

The latest Plextor MediaX does all of these with ease. It

» Read full story

Sorry for not posting this any faster yet Computex certainly is keeping us occupied. BFG launches a series of new cards this week. back from the offcice I already heard that we received some of them for a review. Let me quickly talk you through the new graphics cards.

 So basically there are two new products, in a new product range called OCX.

BFG 9600 GT OCX with ThermoIntelligence Custom Cooling Solution. The GPU operates up to 18

» Read full story

Today we continue on our quest through the halls of the Taiwan Computex 2008. The quest for hardware & knowledge *coughs*

Check it out:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/computex-2008-day-2--moving-onwards/

Please visit our computex landing page, right here.

» Read full story

Here's some of the media attacks on video games. I'm sure some of you will find this funny...

» Read full story

Microsoft has further extended the life of Windows XP so that computer makers can include the operating system on low-cost desktop PCs, the company announced at the Computex trade show on Tuesday.

Microsoft has been under pressure from computer makers to provide a version of its OS for an emerging class of very low-cost laptops and desktops. Its new Windows Vista OS is widely seen as too resource-hungry for those machines.

In April Microsoft extended its deadline for selling Windows XP licenses for low-cost laptops like the Asus Eee PC. It had originally planned to stop selling most XP licenses on June 30.

At Computex on Tuesday it said it has now also extended the deadline for low-cost desktops. PC makers can now include Windows XP in those systems until 2010, the same as the deadline for low-cost laptops, said Rob Young, a senior director with Microsoft's OEM group.

In a statement, Microsoft said the extension applies to "nettops," a term coined by Intel to refer to low-cost desktops that have limited system configurations and are intended for simple tasks like surfing the Internet and sending email. Examples include the upcoming Asus Eee Box, which is on show here at Computex.

It was unclear what limitations Microsoft may put on PC makers to prevent them from installing Windows XP on more capable machines. Young said Microsoft and PC vendors are in general agreement over what constitutes a nettop and suggested that Microsoft won't specify the hardware configurations that vendors can use with XP.

Microsoft said it was responding to the growing popularity of nettops and netbooks, and to demands from PC makers to provide a suitable OS for those machines.

"We've had a lot of feedback from customers and partners, and they're very interested in seeing these devices with Windows on them," said Steve Guggenheimer, the head of Microsoft's OEM business, during a speech at Computex.

Microsoft's statement was ambiguous, saying only that it would extend the deadline for "the Windows offering" to include nettops. Young confirmed that the extension applies to Windows XP.

"We have seen much demand for Windows on the Eee PC," Jerry Shen, CEO of Asustek Computer, said in the statement. "It is great that Microsoft is addressing this customer demand and providing a Windows solution on these devices, which will provide a familiar computing experience."

Intel has said nettops and netbooks are intended as a second PC for the home or for people in developing countries who can't afford a full-featured PC. However, Guggenheimer acknowledged Tuesday that no one knows yet where the devices will prove popular.

"We've had standalone Internet devices come out before, not too many of them have been successful, but now we are getting towards the right price points," he said. "How they'll land and who will buy them we don't really know yet, but we'll wait and see."

Netbooks and nettops are intended to be powerful enough to consume content, such as streaming video, but not powerful enough for content creation tasks like video editing. Many will use Intel's new Atom chips or Via's low-power C7 processor.

The Eee Box is due to go on sale in July for about $300 and will be offered with Windows XP or Linux. It will come with a maximum hard drive capacity of 250G bytes and use 802.11n Wi-Fi for Internet access.
» Read full story

I just came across this video, it's pretty interesting. It shows John Carmack from ID software with his visions for space travel & his investments there. The video has been around since march 08. Tom Clancy is also here...

Horizon - Space Tourists
[Click here to check out the video ]


» Read full story

Today the Computex in Taipei officially kicked off, this is the first impression of booth visits and appointements we have had on the exhibit ground in the new Nangang facility.

Read the first official installment here:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/computex-2008--day-1--the-festivities-begin/

Please visit our computex landing page, right here.

» Read full story

If you
» Read full story

Installing casino in your lodging has been more of a business than hobby. And knowing adding a bit of a flash to it can generate big dough, who doesn
» Read full story

Konami are imposing restrictions on what publications can and cannot talk about when reviewing Metal Gear Solid 4. No mention of 90-minute cutscenes please, and while you're at it, no talky-talky about install sizes either, K? IGN are cool with that. EGM, refreshingly, are not. Due to "limitations Konami wanted to impose on our comments", the editorial team decided to refrain from giving the game a score, and in lieu of a "review" posted a lengthy roundtable discussion about the game instead. It's hardly a gloved fist on an Olympic dias, but it is nice seeing somebody do something about such an...unsavoury practice.
» Read full story

That's the deal Newegg is offering Tuesday.

Equally amazing: That price includes three-day shipping. The Corsair Flash Voyager drive offers 4GB of storage

It's compatible with all operating systems and comes with the TrueCrypt encryption utility (Windows only) for securing your data. You also get a lanyard, USB cable, and 10-year warranty.

Flash drives are good for a lot more than just ferrying data. Check out Lifehacker's Top 10 USB Thumb Drive Tricks to learn how to boot an operating system, assemble a PC repair kit, and more. In the meantime, grab this incredibly good deal before it's too late.
» Read full story

Enjoy the Tribal videos of Spore.

» Read full story

We posted a couple of photo's of the mayhem that is called t-minus one day at Computex. Exhibitors are working extremely hard to get their booths up-to par. And that's just not always an easy task.

This is a quicky couple of photo's before the real thing starts here in taiwan on Tuesday.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/computex-2008-preshow-impressions/

Please visit our computex landing page, right here.

 

» Read full story

Not technology related, though interesting nontheless.

Money fell from the sky in Indonesia today... and into the waiting arms of the country's poorest residents. The mad dash for the cash -which was thrown from a plane in a marketing stunt -left many cut, battered and bruised. A girl of 13 collapsed and had to be taken to hospital.

The 100million rupiah, or nearly

» Read full story